Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,
Former special counsel Jack Smith was criminally referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Oct. 16 by multiple Republican lawmakers for alleged misconduct and possible disbarment.
A group of GOP lawmakers, led by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, asking her office to refer Smith, who was involved in two federal cases against then-former President Donald Trump, to the Office of Professional Responsibility for an investigation.
A statement from Blackburn’s office said Smith had “allegedly engaged in serious prosecutorial misconduct through the politically motivated Arctic Frost investigation and must face appropriate consequences, up to and including disbarment.”
It was revealed earlier this month that the FBI had obtained cell phone records of several sitting Republican senators.
“As part of Jack Smith’s weaponized witch hunt, the Biden DOJ issued subpoenas to several telecommunications companies in 2023 regarding our cell phone records, gaining access to the time, recipient, duration, and location of calls placed on our devices from January 4, 2021, to January 7, 2021,” Blackburn and several other Republican lawmakers wrote to Bondi on Thursday.
The senators added that they “have yet to learn of any legal predicate for the Biden Department of Justice issuing subpoenas to obtain these cell phone records,” the letter said.
Along with Blackburn, FBI agents had obtained data on the phone use of Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), as well as Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), according to a document that was recently made public by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Oct. 6.
Smith wrote in his final report, released earlier this year, that toll records—or records from phones—had shown that Trump allegedly tried reaching out to two senators and told another individual to call members of Congress and suggested they try to delay the certification of the 2020 election results.
After Trump was elected last year, Smith ultimately dropped the charges and resigned in January, shortly before the president took office.
In their letter, the lawmakers accused Smith, who obtained records in the FBI’s Arctic Frost probe, of infringing on the rights of the elected officials and violating their respective rights to privacy.
“This is especially true given the invasion of our privacy was directly connected to our core legislative functions protected by the Speech or Debate Clause of our Constitution,” the Republican lawmakers wrote.
“To the best we can tell, Smith’s team went on this fishing expedition for one simple reason: we are Republicans who support President Trump.”
Last week, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee demanded in a letter to Smith that he provide testimony to their panel to understand how he operated in the two investigations into Trump. The lawmakers said that officials who had worked under Smith did not cooperate with their investigation by either invoking their Fifth Amendment right that bars a person from making self-incriminating statements or by declining to answer Republicans’ questions.
In his report sent to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, Smith defended his investigations into Trump. One accused Trump of illegally retaining classified documents, while the other accused him of illegally trying to subvert the 2020 election results.
“Nobody within the Department of Justice ever sought to interfere with, or improperly influence, my prosecutorial decision making,” Smith said in the Jan. 7, 2025, letter.
He also claimed that his dropping charges against Trump after his election win was not a sign that the president should be exonerated from guilt.
Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges and has long said they were part of a politically motivated attempt to denigrate his reelection campaign.
Last week, Smith told a panel that allegations that he acted in a politically motivated manner are false and said he is “very concerned” about attempts to “demonize” career DOJ officials “for political ends.” The discussion was the first time Smith had spoken about his role as a special counsel prosecuting Trump.
So far, Smith has not publicly responded to the Republican lawmakers’ statements about their phone records being obtained. The Epoch Times contacted Smith’s counsel, Peter Koski, for comment on Friday.
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